CES 2014

Each Steam Machine coming to the market later this year will be unique - that's the message we're getting from groups like iBuyPower and Falcon Northwest here in the first month of the year. Speaking with the creators of the SteamOS devices that'll be arriving inside the second half of the year, it would seem as though they've got some time to fill - it's Valve, after all, that'll be deciding when the devices are actually allowed to be released as it's Valve that has to release the final software build and the Steam Controllers that go with the machines for final market readiness. Today we're looking at what iBuyPower is doing, specifically, to make their Steam Machine an ideal release.

Intel's much-vaunted wearables shown off at CES 2014 last week didn't even necessarily use the company's own processors, it has admitted, with at least one of the gadgets using low-power chips from arch rival ARM. Some of the prototypes relied on "third-party parts" an Intel spokesperson conceded to PCMag, though declined to specify either which devices or which components; however an insider fingered the Intel Jarvis smart headset as using an ARM processor.

Supposing you’ve never used a SteelSeries keyboard before, or you’ve never seen an MSI-made gaming notebook up close and personal, the ushering in of this lineup should throw you for a bit of a loop. What we’re looking at here is the MSI G Series Gaming collection of gaming laptops, with everything from the GT Dominator to the GS Stealth coming up hard with the ability to support some of today’s hardest-hitting games. Where SteelSeries comes in is in the software side of the keyboard.

If you're planning on making your very own Steam Machine this upcoming inaugural release season and you're a manufacturer looking to sell this device to the public, there's one point of order you'll need to concentrate on first and foremost: the Steam Controller. Here Valve places one of the only hardware bits that they'd like to control implicitly. While Gabe Newell himself has suggested that they may be open to having other companies make odd versions of the Steam Controller in the future, the first wave will be made by Valve, and it'll be required for action.

It's fair to say Motorola had a big 2013, and SlashGear sat down with Steve Horowitz, senior VP of software engineering, and Steve Sinclair, VP of product marketing, at CES last week to talk wearables, contextual ecosystems, and the Internet of Things. The Google-owned company kicked off a new smartphone strategy, epitomized by the always-listening Moto X and the shockingly-affordable Moto G, arguably just as notable for what it left out of its products as what it chose to include. Meanwhile - and topical, given Google has just acquired Nest - we also talked about Motorola's place in the smart home, and where former Android project lead Horowitz sees the smartphone fitting in. Read on for the full interview.

With the folks at Tobii Technology you've got some of the most advanced work in the world being down with eye-tracking with the PC. This month they're introducing a partnership with gaming peripheral leaders SteelSeries in an effort to jump-start their entry into the personal PC eye-tracking market. The first introduction we've had with Tobii has been their very own Tobii EyeX Developer Kit, a unit that's already rolling for a variety of PCs and getting prepared for launch this Spring.

CES 2014 has come and gone, and as the dust settles it's time to pick over the remains of the show. The Consumer Electronics Show demands a theme - or at least we in the industry demand a theme of it - and 2014 proved to be wearables, with a little competition from Ultra HD (again) and big, curved TVs (again). That came as no great shock, since analysts have been telling us 2014 is to be "the year of wearables" pretty much since 2013 started out; if there was any degree of surprise, it was in quite how "me too" the various devices were on show.

The time has come: the video game industry must finally come together to pick a single standard for game controllers that will work across platforms and easily handle gameplay on any device.

At the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) this week, a slew of companies showed off their own Steam Machines. That, coupled with the latest-generation consoles, the possibility of the Tegra K1 bringing yet more set-top boxes into the gaming space, and products like Ouya, sitting on store shelves, it becomes all the more apparent that we’re in gaming overload.

While it's not headed to market for a while yet, seeing a completely wireless* mouse capable of recharging itself on the go wasn't something we expected to see this week from Mionix. Then again we have discovered - over the past year or so - that this relatively small group of creators are capable of making fantastic gaming peripherals, and don't put it past them to figure out the dilemma they've got facing them in this product here this past week at CES 2014. While we can sit still and charge with this prototype mouse - wirelessly - we'll still have to stop with the charging while we're playing.

In the 3D realm of CES 2014 we caught up with 3D Systems, a crew that brought so many new products and services to the show that it was difficult keeping up with it all! Two of the more late-breaking items we were introduced to were the Chef Jet and the Chef Jet Pro, both of them capable food-safe 3D printing. Both printers are fully certified and ready to head to the kitchen this year.

When you’ve got a design for a watch as ubiquitous as the Casio G-Shock on the market, you’re allowed to be late to the new technology party. This year Casio’s entry in the STB-100 comes in the form of Bluetooth 4.0 and a sports-tracking collection of bits and pieces in their slightly modified G-Shock design. While we’re not about to suggest this watch is in any way more all-inclusive than its smartwatch competitors from Sony, Samsung, Pebble, and the many others shown off this week at CES 2014, Casio still retains that built-in fan base they’ve cultivated for years.

Coming completely out of left field with a release of Star Wars headphones - officially licensed and everything - was 50 Cent and SMS Audio. It’s difficult to describe the way this new cross-section of Star Wars headphones looks and feels without being there with them in your own hands, as it were. It’s almost as if they’re made to look like they’re made for children, but continue to impose the possibility of high-end sound - an interesting market to be going after, for sure.